Waking the Dead
The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive
Chapters Four and Five

Create in me a clean heart, O God.
—King David (Ps. 51:10 NKJV)

I will give you a new heart.
—God (Ezek. 36:26)

Now Beauty feared that she had caused his death. She ran throughout the palace, sobbing loudly. After searching everywhere, she recalled her dream and ran into the garden toward the canal, where she had seen him in her sleep. There she found the poor Beast stretched out unconscious. She thought he was dead. Without concern for his horrifying looks, she threw herself on his body and felt his heart beating. So she fetched some water from the canal and threw it on his face.

Beast opened his eyes and said, “You forgot your promise, Beauty. The grief I felt upon having lost you made me decide to fast to death. But I shall die content since I have the pleasure of seeing you one more time.”

“No, my dear Beast, you shall not die,” said Beauty. “You will live to become my husband. I give you my hand, and I swear that I belong only to you from this moment on. Alas! I thought that I only felt friendship for you, but the torment I am feeling makes me realize that I cannot live without you.”

Beauty had scarcely uttered these words when the castle radiated with light. Fireworks and music announced a feast. These attractions did not hold her attention, though. She returned her gaze to her dear Beast, whose dangerous condition made her tremble. How great was her surprise when she discovered that the Beast had disappeared, and at her feet was a prince more handsome than Eros himself, who thanked her for putting an end to his enchantment.

It is the deepest and most wonderful of all mythic truths, unveiled here in the original Beauty and the Beast, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The Transformation. A creature that no one could bear to look upon is transformed into a handsome prince. That which was dark and ugly is now glorious and good. Is it not the most beautiful outcome of any story to be written? Perhaps that is because it is the deepest yearning of the human heart. Look how often this theme surfaces.

The phoenix rises from the ashes. Cinderella rises from the cinders to become a queen. The ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan. Pinocchio becomes a real boy. The frog becomes a prince. Wretched old Scrooge becomes “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town or borough in the good old world.” The Cowardly Lion gets his courage and the Scarecrow gets his brains and the Tin Woodman gets a new heart. In hope beyond hope, they are all transformed into the very thing they never thought they could be.

Why are we enchanted by tales of transformation? I can’t think of a movie or novel or fairy tale that doesn’t somehow turn on this. Why is it an essential part of any great story? Because it is the secret to Christianity, and Christianity is the secret to the universe. “You must be born again” (John 3:7). You must be transformed. Keeping the Law, following the rules, polishing up your manners—none of that will do. What counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people (Gal. 6:15). Is this not the message of the gospel? Zacchaeus the trickster becomes Zacchaeus the Honest One. Mary the whore becomes Mary the Last of the Truly Faithful. Paul the self-righteous murderer becomes Paul the Humble Apostle.

And we? I doubt that many of us would go so far as to say we’re transformed. Our names are written down somewhere in heaven, and we have been forgiven. Perhaps we have changed a bit in what we believe and how we act. We confess the creeds now, and we’ve gotten our temper under control . . . for the most part. But transformed seems a bit too much to claim. How about forgiven and on our way? That’s how most Christians would describe what’s happened to them. It’s partly true . . . and partly untrue, and the part that’s untrue is what’s killing us. We’ve been told that even though we have placed our hope in Christ, even though we have become his followers, our hearts are still desperately wicked.

But is that what the Bible teaches?

What We Most Desperately Need

“Everything I learned about human nature I learned from me,” wrote the playwright Anton Chekhov, and the characters he so vividly created—with all their selfishness, their hatred, their dark and desperate desires, their hopelessness—they do rather well to describe us all. Imagine a story whose characters are taken from your own inner life and blown up for all to see. Egads. Something has gone wrong with the human race, and we know it. Better said, something has gone wrong within the human race. It doesn’t take a theologian or a psychologist to tell you that. Read a newspaper. Spend a weekend with your relatives. Simply pay attention to the movements of your own heart in a single day. Most of the misery we suffer on this planet is the fruit of the human heart gone bad.

Scripture could not be more clear on this. Yes, God created us to reflect his glory, but barely three chapters into the drama we torpedoed the whole project. Sin entered the picture and spread like a computer virus. By the sixth chapter of Genesis, our downward spiral had reached the point where God himself couldn’t bear it any longer: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Gen. 6:5–6). This is the first mention of God’s heart in the Bible, by the way, and it’s a sad beginning, to be sure. His heart is broken because ours is fallen.

Any honest person knows this. We know we are not what we were meant to be. If we’ll stop shifting the blame for just a moment, stop trying to put the onus on some other person or some policy or some other race, if we will take a naked and frank assessment of ourselves as measured against the life of Christ, well, then. Most of us will squirm and dodge and admit that perhaps we fall a bit short. If we’re truly honest, we’ll confess that we have it in us to be the Beast, the wicked stepsister, Scrooge. Most of the world religions concur on this point. Something needs to be done.

But the usual remedies involve some sort of shaping up on our part, some sort of face-lift whereby we clean up our act and start behaving as we should. Jews try to keep the Law. Buddhists follow the Eightfold Path. Muslims live by the Five Pillars. Many Christians try church attendance and moral living. You’d think, with all the effort, humanity would be on top of things by now. Of course, the reason all those treatments ultimately fail is that we quite misdiagnosed the disease. The problem is not in our behavior; the problem is in us. Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander” (Matt. 15:19, emphasis added). We don’t need an upgrade. We need transformation. We need a miracle.

The Last Adam, The Second Man

Jesus of Nazareth is given many names in Scripture. He is called the Lion of Judah. The Bright and Morning Star. The Wonderful Counselor. The Prince of Peace. The Lamb of God. There are many, many more—each one a window into all that he truly is, all that he has done, all that he will do. But one name seems to have escaped our attention, and that might help explain our misunderstanding of the gospel. Paul refers to Jesus as the Last Adam and the Second Man (1 Cor. 15:45–47). Why is this important? Because of what happened through the First Adam.

Our first father, Adam, and our first mother, Eve, were destined to be the root and trunk of humanity. What they were meant to be, we were meant to be: the kings and queens of the earth, the rulers over all creation, the glorious image bearers of a glorious God. They were statues of God walking about in a Garden, radiant Man and Woman, as we were to be. Our natures and our destinies were bound up in theirs. Their choices would forever shape our lives, for good or for evil. It is deep mystery, but we see something of a hint of it in the way children so often follow in the steps of their parents. Haven’t you heard it said, “He has his father’s temper,” or “She has her mother’s wit”? As the old saying goes, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. In fact, we call them family trees, and Adam and Eve are the first names on the list.

Our first parents chose, and it was on the side of evil. They broke the one command, the only command, God gave to them, and what followed you can watch any night on the news. The long lament of human history. Something went wrong in their hearts, something shifted, and that shift was passed along to each of us. Parents will often wonder where their toddlers learned to lie or how they came into the world so self-centered. It doesn’t need to be taught to them; it is inherent to human nature. Paul makes clear in Romans, “Sin entered the world through one man . . . through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners” (5:12, 19). Of course, I am simply restating the doctrine of original sin, a core tenet of Christianity essential to Scripture.

But that is not the end of the Story, thank God. The First Adam was only “a pattern of the one to come” (Rom. 5:14). He would foreshadow another man, the head of a new race, the firstborn of a new creation, whose life would mean transformation to those who would become joined to him: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Christ, the Last Adam] the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

A man comes down from heaven, slips into our world unnoticed, as Neo does in The Matrix, as Maximus does in Gladiator, as Wallace does in Braveheart. Yet he is no ordinary man, and his mission no ordinary mission. He comes as a substitute, a representative, as the destroyer of one system and the seed of something new. His death and resurrection break the power of the Matrix, release the prisoners, set the captives free. It is a historic fact. It really happened. And it is more than history. It is mythic in the first degree. Lewis said, “By becoming fact, it does not cease to be myth; that is the miracle.”

In the fifth chapter of the famous book of Romans, Paul asks, Was Adam effective? Did his life have far-reaching consequences? We all know it did. It was devastating. He goes on to say, Well, then, the consequences of Christ, the Last Adam, were even greater: “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17, emphasis added).

I Will Remove Your Heart of Stone

Jesus of Nazareth was sentenced to death by a vain puppet of the Roman government acting as district governor of Jerusalem. He was nailed to a cross by a handful of Roman soldiers who happened to be on duty, and left there to die. He died sometime around three o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday. Of a broken heart, by the way. And we call it Good Friday, of all strange things, because of what it effected. An innocent man, the Son of God, bleeding for the sins of the world. Standing in for us, as Jack gives his life for Rose in Titanic, as Sydney Carton stands in to die for Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities, or as Aslan dies on the stone table to ransom the traitor Edmund. We rebelled, and the penalty for our rebellion was death. To lose us was too great a pain for God to bear, and so he took it upon himself to rescue us. The Son of God came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

You have been ransomed by Christ. Your treachery is forgiven. You are entirely pardoned for every wrong thought and desire and deed. This is what the vast majority of Christians understand as the central work of Christ for us. And make no mistake about it—it is a deep and stunning truth, one that will set you free and bring you joy. For a while.

But the joy for most of us has proven fleeting because we find that we need to be forgiven again and again and again. Christ has died for us, but we remain (so we believe) deeply marred. It actually ends up producing a great deal of guilt. “After all that Christ has done for you . . . and now you’re back here asking forgiveness again?” To be destined to a life of repeating the very things that sent our Savior to the cross can hardly be called salvation.

Think of it: you are a shadow of the person you were meant to be. You have nothing close to the life you were meant to have. And you have no real chance of becoming that person or finding that life. However, you are forgiven. For the rest of your days, you will fail in your attempts to become what God wants you to be. You should seek forgiveness and try again. Eventually, shame and disappointment will cloud your understanding of yourself and your God. When this ongoing hell on earth is over, you will die, and you will be taken before your God for a full account of how you didn’t measure up. But you will be forgiven. After that, you’ll be asked to take your place in the choir of heaven. This is what we mean by salvation.

The good news is . . . that is not Christianity. There is more. A lot more. And that more is what most of us have been longing for most of our lives.

Under the old covenant, a Jewish boy was to be circumcised when he was eight days old, the foreskin of his penis removed with a knife. It was intended to be symbolic, a sign of the covenant given to Abraham. Forever after, everyone, including that boy, would know that he was marked for God, set apart for God. But in that symbol lay a deeper meaning, veiled for centuries, just as the mythic is often veiled, just as the sacrificial lamb required of the ancient Jews would foreshadow the death of Christ. It would take a Jewish convert of Christ to explain the true meaning of circumcision:

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. (Rom. 2:28–29, emphasis added) In [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ. (Col. 2:11)

It’s not just that the Cross did something for us. Something deep and profound happened to us in the death of Christ. Remember—the heart is the problem. God understands this better than anyone, and he goes for the root. God promised in the new covenant to “take away your heart of stone.” How? By joining us to the death of Christ. Our nature was nailed to the cross with Christ; we died there, with him, in him. Yes, it is a deep mystery—“deep magic” as Lewis called it—but that does not make it untrue. “The death he died, he died to sin once for all . . . In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin” (Rom. 6:10–11). Jesus was the Last Adam, the end of that terrible story.

You’ve been far more than forgiven. God has removed your heart of stone. You’ve been delivered of what held you back from what you were meant to be. You’ve been rescued from the part of you that sabotages even your best intentions. Your heart has been circumcised to God. Your heart has been set free.

And there is even more.

And I Will Give You a New Heart

Most people assume that the Cross is the total work of Christ. The two go hand in hand in our minds—Jesus Christ and the Cross; the Cross and Jesus Christ. The Resurrection is impressive, but kind of . . . an afterthought. It was needed, of course, to get him out of the grave. Or the Resurrection is important because it proves Jesus was the Son of God. His death was the real work on our behalf. The Resurrection is like an epilogue to the real story; the extra point after the touchdown; the medal ceremony after the Olympic event. You can see which we think is more important. What image do we put on our churches, our Bibles, our jewelry? The cross is the symbol of Christianity worldwide. However . . .

The cross was never meant to be the only or even the central symbol of Christianity.

That you are shocked by what I’ve just said only proves how far we’ve strayed from the faith of the New Testament. The cross is not the sole focal point of Christianity. Paul says so himself: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith . . . If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14, 17).

We have grown so used to the idea that the Crucifixion is the supreme symbol of Christianity, that it is a shock to realize how late in the history of Christian art its power was recognized. In the first art of Christianity it hardly appears; and the earliest example, on the doors of Santa Sabina in Rome [around A.D. 430], is stuck away in a corner, almost out of sight . . . early Christian art is concerned with miracles, healings, and with hopeful aspects of the faith like the Ascension and the Resurrection.

Art historian Kenneth Clark is telling us something so foreign to our thinking, it takes a second reading. What? Christians don’t even begin to use the cross as a symbol until four hundred years after Christ, and then only in a minor role? Four hundred years of the earliest and most vibrant Christianity goes by without the cross as its rallying point?! Those who walked with Jesus, and those who walked with those who walked with Jesus—they didn’t make the cross central? Why? As the record goes, what the apostles preached was the Resurrection:

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus . . . Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us . . . For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Acts 1:15–16, 21–22)

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. (Acts 4:1–2)

With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. (Acts 4:33)

Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18)

The early Christian church symbolized the Resurrection, healings, and miracles because the church thought those things were central. The reason the first and closest friends of Jesus focused on miracles, healings, and hopeful aspects of the faith such as the Ascension and the Resurrection was simply that those are what God himself wants us to focus on. Those are the point. Those make Christianity such very good news. A dead man is not a great deal of help to us; a dead God is even worse. But life, real life, the power of God to restore you . . . now that’s a whole nother matter.

We say Christ died for us, and that is true. But Christ was also raised for us. His resurrection was as much for us as his death was.

For if, by the trespass of the one man [the First Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:17, emphasis added)

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life . . . In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:4, 11)

But because of his great love for us, God . . . made us alive with Christ. (Eph. 2:4–5)

Remember now—Adam was a pattern of the One to come. He was the root and trunk of our family tree. Our hearts fell when he fell. We received our sinful nature from him. So we now receive a new nature and a new heart from Christ, our Second Man. We have been made alive with the life of Christ. Just as we received our sinful nature from Adam, so we now receive a good and holy nature from Christ. It has always been God’s plan not just to forgive you, but to restore you: “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good” (Matt. 12:33). Or as Milton had it,

Their nature also to thy nature join . . .
And live in thee transplanted, and from thee
Receive new life.

Let me try this again. The new covenant has two parts to it: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). God removed your old heart when he circumcised your heart; he gives you a new heart when he joins you to the life of Christ. That’s why Paul can say “count yourselves dead to sin” and “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).

The story of the Incarnation is the story of a descent and resurrection . . . one has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, and then down through the green, and warm, and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold, freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature. (C. S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle”)

The Resurrection affirms the promise Christ made. For it was life he offered to give us: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). We are saved by his life when we find that we are able to live the way we’ve always known we should live. We are free to be what he meant when he meant us. You have a new life—the life of Christ. And you have a new heart. Do you know what this means? Your heart is good.

The Dwelling Place of God

The year is about 1450 B.C. Somewhere in the deserts east of Sinai, a band of runaway slaves have pitched camp. In the middle of the camp, the nomads have erected a tent of goat hair and skins—a design given to them by God himself when he talked face-to-face with Moses on the mountain. The tabernacle had two parts, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (the Holy of Holies). It was in the Most Holy Place that the presence of God would come: “Moses did everything just as the LORD commanded him . . . and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:16, 34).

And just as Adam was a pattern of the One who was to come, just as the sacrificial lambs offered by the Jews in that tabernacle foreshadowed an even greater Sacrifice to come, so the tabernacle itself was a picture of something even more amazing. It is a kind of mythic symbol, given to us to help us understand a deeper eternal reality. Each person knows that now his body is the temple of God: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Cor. 6:19). Indeed it is. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). Okay—each of us is now the temple of God. So where, then, is the Holy of Holies?

Your heart.

That’s right—your heart. Paul teaches us in Ephesians that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (3:17). God comes down to dwell in us, in our hearts. Now, we know this: God cannot dwell where there is evil. “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell” (Ps. 5:4). Something pretty dramatic must have happened in our hearts, then, to make them fit to be the dwelling place of a holy God.

Of course, none of this can happen for us until we give our lives back to God. We cannot know the joy or the life or the freedom of heart I’ve described here until we surrender our lives to Jesus and surrender them totally. Renouncing all the ways we have turned from God in our hearts, we forsake the idols we have worshiped and given our hearts over to. We turn, and give ourselves body, soul, and spirit back to God, asking him to cleanse our hearts and make them new. And he does. He gives us a new heart. And he comes to dwell there, in our hearts.

The Promise Fulfilled

“If we believed that . . . we could do anything. We would follow him anywhere!”

A few of us were sitting around last week talking about the gospel, what it really promises and what it means for our lives. I was trying to make the case that the new covenant means nothing less than this: the heart is good. I was surprised to hear the protests from most of my friends, who are deeply committed followers of Jesus and who have walked with him for years. “What? That can’t be! I’ve never heard that . . . ever.” I know. Neither had I. But it’s undeniable: the new covenant, accomplished through the work of Christ, means that we have a new heart. Now listen to Jesus:

Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. (Luke 6:44–45, emphasis added)\

Later, explaining the parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus says,

The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. (Luke 8:15, emphasis added)

Jesus himself teaches that at least for somebody, the heart can be good and even noble. That somebody is you, if you are his. God kept his promise. Our hearts have been circumcised to God. We have new hearts. Do you know what this means? Your heart is good. Let that sink in for a moment. Your heart is good.

What would happen if you believed it, if you came to the place where you knew it was true? Your life would never be the same. My friend Lynn got it, and that’s when she exclaimed, “If we believed that . . . we could do anything. We would follow him anywhere!” Exactly. It would change our lives. It would change the face of Christianity. This is the lost message of the gospel, lost at least to a great many people. Small wonder. This is the last thing the Enemy wants the world to know. It would change everything. Those of you who’ve gotten your hearts back know exactly what I mean. It’s freedom. It’s life.

Chapter Five
The Glory Hidden in Your Heart

The LORD their God will save them on that day
as the flock of his people.
They will sparkle in his land
like jewels in a crown.
How attractive and beautiful they will be!
—Zechariah (9:16–17)

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
—Kind David (Ps. 34:5)

“Have you no other daughters?” “No,” said the man. “There is a little stunted kitchen wench which my late wife left behind her, but she cannot be the bride.” The King’s son said he was to send her up to him; but the step-mother answered, “Oh no, she is much too dirty, she cannot show herself!” But he absolutely insisted on it, and Cinderella had to be called. She first washed her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the King’s son, who gave her the golden slipper. Then she seated herself on a stool, drew her foot out of the heavy wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper, which fit like a glove. And when she rose up and the King’s son looked at her face, he recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, “This is the true bride!” The step-mother and two sisters were horrified and became pale with rage; he, however, took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her.

I love this part of the story—to see the heroine unveiled in all her glory. To have her, finally, rise up to her full height. Mocked, hated, laughed at, spit upon—Cinderella is the one the slipper fits; she’s the one the prince is in love with; she’s the true bride. Just as we are. We, the ransomed church, are the bride of the King’s Son, are we not? “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:9). We’ve been chosen by him. We are the object of his love. “You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes” (Song 4:9). This fairy tale is true. I love it that in this passage from the original “Cinderella,” the king’s son insisted she come out of hiding. Though her family would keep her in the cellar, he’ll have none of that. Come out. You are mine now. Let your light shine before men.

Still, if I’m honest, I appreciate the story . . . from a distance. The thought of me being called out of hiding is unnerving. I don’t think I want to be seen. Many years ago, during my life in the theater, I received a standing ovation for a performance. The audience was literally on its feet, cheering. What actor doesn’t crave a standing ovation? So you know what I did? I ran. Literally. As soon as the curtain went down I bolted for the door, so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to be seen. I know, it’s weird, but I’ll bet you feel the same about being unveiled.

You probably can’t imagine there being a glory to your life, let alone one that the Enemy fears. But remember—things are not what they seem. We are not what we seem. You probably believed that your heart was bad too. I pray that fog of poison gas from the pit of hell is fading away in the wind of God’s truth. And there is more. Not only does Christ say to you that your heart is good, he invites you now out of the shadows to unveil your glory. You have a role you never dreamed of having.

There’s the beautiful scene toward the end of Joseph’s life where he, too, is unveiled. The very brothers who sold him into slavery as a boy are standing before what they believe is an angry Egyptian lord, equal in power to Pharaoh himself, their knees knocking. The silver cup of this dreaded lord was found stashed away in their luggage as they headed out of town—placed there by Joseph himself as a ruse. Now Joseph interrogates them till they squirm, deepening the plot by using an interpreter as if he doesn’t understand Hebrew, pressing them hard. Finally, unable to hold back his tears, he reveals himself: “I am Joseph; does my father still live? . . . So you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt . . . and you shall hurry and bring my father down here” (Gen. 45:3, 13 NKJV). This is who I really am! Tell him about my glory! Amazing.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Peter is unveiled at pentecost with quite a sermon that brings three thousand converts into the church. This from the man who denied Christ, three times, in his hour of need. Peter’s buddies had to have been thinking, Whoa, where did that come from? And of course, Jesus himself, the carpenter’s son, is unveiled on the Mount of Transfiguration for who he really is—the King of glory. In a beautiful mythic parallel, Aragorn, son of Arathorn and true heir to the throne of Gondor, is finally unveiled in the third book of Tolkien’s trilogy, aptly titled The Return of the King. For years upon end he’s merely been known as Strider, a Ranger, living out in the wilds doing no one really knows what. (Can anything good come out of Nazareth?) The chief of the Dunedain, the last great king of the race of men, Aragorn comes forward to take his rightful place.

Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind from the Sea to the kingdom of Gondor; and the mirth of the Rohirrim was a torrent of laughter and a flashing of swords, and the joy and wonder of the City was a music of trumpets and a ringing of bells. But the hosts of Mordor were seized with bewilderment, and a great wizardry it seemed to them that their own ships should be filled with their foes; and a black dread fell on them, knowing that the tides of fate had turned against them and their doom was at hand . . . But before all went Aragorn with the Flame of the West, Andúril like a new fire kindled, Narsil re-forged as deadly as of old; and upon his brow was the Star of Elendil.

The day has come, and the Morning Star has risen, never to set again. This unveiling, this coming into your glory, this is inevitable for the ransomed heart. If you’ll recall, Moses put a veil over his face. That, too, was a picture of a deeper reality. We all do that. We have all veiled our glory, or someone has veiled it for us. Usually, some combination of both. But the time has come to set all veils aside:

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? . . . Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away . . . And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with everincreasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:7–8, 12–13, 18)

We are in the process of being unveiled. We were created to reflect God’s glory, born to bear his image, and he ransomed us to reflect that glory again. Every heart was given a mythic glory, and that glory is being restored. Remember the mission of Christ: “I have come to give you back your heart and set you free.” For as Saint Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Certainly, you don’t think the opposite is true. How do we bring God glory when we are sulking around in the cellar, weighed down by shame and guilt, hiding our light under a bushel? Our destiny is to come fully alive. To live with ever-increasing glory. This is the Third Eternal Truth every good myth has been trying to get across to us: your heart bears a glory, and your glory is needed . . . now. This is our desperate hour.

No Good Thing?

In an attempt to explain the biblical doctrine of sin, we’ve let something else creep in. You’ll hear it come up almost automatically whenever Christians talk about themselves: “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace.” “I’m just clothes for God to put on.” “There sure isn’t any good thing in me.” It’s so common this mind-set, this idea that we are no-good wretches, ready to sin at a moment’s notice, incapable of goodness, and certainly far from any glory.

It’s also unbiblical.

The passage people think they are referring to is Romans 7:18, where Paul says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (KJV). Notice the distinction he makes. He does not say, “There is nothing good in me. Period.” What he says is that “in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.” The flesh is the old nature, the old life, crucified with Christ. The flesh is the very thing God removed from our hearts when he circumcised them by his Spirit. In Galatians Paul goes on to explain, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature [the flesh] with its passions and desires” (5:24). He does not say, “I am incapable of good.” He says, “In my flesh dwelleth no good thing.” In fact, just a few moments later, he discovers that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2 NKJV).

Yes, we still battle with sin. Yes, we still have to crucify our flesh on a daily basis. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the [sinful nature], you will live” (Rom. 8:13 NKJV). We have to choose to live from the new heart, and our old nature doesn’t go down without a fight. I’ll say more about that later. For now the question on the table is: Does the Bible teach that Christians are nothing but sinners—that there is nothing good in us? The answer is no! You have a new heart. Your heart is good. That sinful nature you battle is not who you are. Twice, in the famous chapter of Romans 7, where Paul presents a first-person angst about our battle against sin, he says, “But this is not my true nature. This is not my heart.”

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature . . . Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it . . . For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. (vv. 17–18, 20, 22, emphasis added)

Paul is making a crucial distinction: This is not me; this is not my true heart. Listen to how he talks about himself in other places. He opens every letter by introducing himself as “Paul, an apostle.” Not as a sinner, but as an apostle, writing to “the saints.” Dump the religiosity; think about this mythically. Paul, appointed as a Great One in the kingdom, writing other Great Allies of the kingdom. How bold of him. There is no false humility, no groveling. He says,

Surely you have heard about the . . . grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed [to me]. (Eph. 3:2–5)

Paul is unashamed to say that he knows things no man before him knew. He even assumes they’ve heard about him, the mysteries revealed to him. That is part of his glory. His humility comes through clearly, in that he quickly admits that it’s all been a gift, and in fact, a gift given to him for others.

And listen to the way he talks about us: “You shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Phil. 2:15–16). As Shawn Mullins sings, “we’re born to shimmer; we’re born to shine.” You are supposed to shimmer. “Let your light shine before men” (Matt. 5:16). All this groveling and self-deprecation done by Christians is often just shame masquerading as humility. Shame says, “I’m nothing to look at. I’m not capable of goodness.” Humility says, “I bear a glory for sure, but it is a reflected glory. A grace given to me.” Your story does not begin with sin. It begins with a glory bestowed upon you by God. It does not start in Genesis 3; it starts in Genesis 1. First things first, as they say.

Certainly, you will admit that God is glorious. Is there anyone more kind? Is there anyone more creative? Is there anyone more valiant? Is there anyone more true? Is there anyone more daring? Is there anyone more beautiful? Is there anyone more wise? Is there anyone more generous? You are his offspring. His child. His reflection. His likeness. You bear his image. Do remember that though he made the heavens and the earth in all their glory, the desert and the open sea, the meadow and the Milky Way, and said, “It is good,” it was only after he made you that he said, “It is very good” (Gen. 1:31). Think of it: your original glory was greater than anything that’s ever taken your breath away in nature.

As for the saints who are in the land,
they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. (Ps. 16:3)

God endowed you with a glory when he created you, a glory so deep and mythic that all creation pales in comparison. A glory unique to you, just as your fingerprints are unique to you, just as the way you laugh is unique to you. Somewhere down deep inside we’ve been looking for that glory ever since. A man wants to know that he is truly a man, that he could be brave; he longs to know that he is a warrior; and all his life he wonders, “Have I got what it takes?” A woman wants to know that she is truly a woman, that she is beautiful; she longs to know that she is captivating; and all her life she wonders, “Do I have a beauty to offer?” The poet Yeats wrote,

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face
I had Before the world was made.
(“Before the World Was Made” from the poem “A Woman Young and Old”)

Yes, that’s it. When you take a second glance in the mirror, when you pause to look again at a photograph, you are looking for a glory you know you were meant to have, if only because you know you long to have it. You remember faintly that you were once more than what you have become. Your story didn’t start with sin, and thank God, it does not end with sin. It ends with glory restored: “Those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). And “in the meantime,” you have been transformed, and you are being transformed. You’ve been given a new heart. Now God is restoring your glory. He is bringing you fully alive. Because the glory of God is you fully alive.

Under a Spell

“Well, then, if this is all true, why don’t I see it?” Precisely. Exactly. Now we are reaching my point. The fact that you do not see your good heart and your glory is only proof of how effective the assault has been. We don’t see ourselves clearly. Have you forgotten your fairy tales?

In The Silver Chair (the sixth story of the Narnia series), two English schoolchildren—Eustace and Jill—are summoned into Narnia to find the missing crown prince of that kingdom. Years earlier Prince Rilian was abducted by a witch, placed under a spell, and taken to her underground kingdom. Once a day, for an hour, the prince would wake from the magic spell and realize where he was and who he was and what had happened. But during those hours he was chained to a silver chair so that he could not escape. All the other hours of the day he was “free” because he was convinced that the witch was good and he was her grateful slave, a nogood wretch. Near the climax of the story the children—with the help of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle—free the prince from the chair and the power of the spell.

Then he turned and surveyed his rescuers; and the something wrong, whatever it was, had vanished from his face. “What?” he cried, turning to Puddleglum. “Do I see before me a Marsh-wiggle— a real, live, honest, Narnian Marsh-wiggle?” “Oh, so you have heard of Narnia, after all?” said Jill. “Had I forgotten it when I was under the spell?” asked the Knight. “Well, that and all other bedevilments are now over. You may well believe that I know Narnia, for I am Rilian, Prince of Narnia, and Caspian the great King is my Father.” “Your Royal Highness,” said Puddleglum, sinking on one knee (and the children did the same), “we have come hither for no other end than to seek you.”

“How long then have I been in the power of the witch?” “It is more than ten years since your Highness was lost in the woods at the north side of Narnia.” “Ten years!” said the Prince, drawing his hand across his face as if to rub away the past. “Yes, I believe you. For now that I am myself I can remember that enchanted life, though while I was enchanted I could not remember my true self.”

“Though while I was enchanted I could not remember my true self.” That’s it exactly. We are under a spell. We are alert and oriented times zero. We have no idea who we really are. Whatever glory was bestowed, whatever glory is being restored, we thought this whole Christian thing was about . . . something else. Trying not to sin. Going to church. Being nice. Jesus says it is about healing your heart, setting it free, restoring your glory. A religious fog has tried to veil all that, put us under some sort of spell or amnesia, to keep us from coming alive. Pascal said, “It is a monstrous thing . . . an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber.” And Paul said, It is time to take that veil away.

Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:16–18)

A veil removed, bringing freedom, transformation, glory. Do you see it? I am not making this up—though I have been accused of making the gospel better than it is. The charge is laughable. Could anyone be more generous than God? Could any of us come up with a story that beats the one God has come up with? All the stories that we tell borrow their power from the Great Story he is telling. Take the movie The Lion King, ignore the “circle of life” stuff—the whole myth is borrowed from Christianity. There once was a beautiful kingdom. But it was stolen by the evil one. Its glory has been marred. Badly. Now it’s time for the true king to come back and take over. But Simba—the lion heir to the throne— doesn’t believe who he is. His father was murdered when he was young, and the enemy blamed it on Simba. Simba ran away, and after years of losing heart, he winds up living with a wart hog and a meerkat whose highest ambitions in life are breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then, one night, Simba’s father appears to him in a vision:

MUFASA: Simba.
SIMBA: Father?
MUFASA: Simba, you have forgotten me.
SIMBA: No! How could I?
MUFASA: You have forgotten who you are, and so forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba . . . you are more than what you have become.
SIMBA: How can I go back? I’m not who I used to be.
MUFASA: Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true king. Remember who you are.

Simba finally throws off the veil of shame and self-reproach and goes back to take the kingdom that is rightly his. As a result, his glory and the glory of the realm are restored. Something similar happens toward the end of The Matrix. Neo joins the forces seeking to set the world free. He has left behind the identity of Thomas Anderson, computer guy, nobody special really. He’s taken many risks, lived by faith. But the real moment of his glory comes when he finally turns to face his enemy. Up to this point everyone has run from the “agents,” who are symbols of the demonic. John writes in his first epistle, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world . . . The whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 4:4; 5:19). No one has challenged them; no one has taken them on. As Neo turns to confront evil incarnate, his friends are watching, incredulous, afraid.

TRINITY: What’s he doing?
MORPHEUS: He’s beginning to believe.

What is he beginning to believe? Who he really is.

Your Truest Self

Then from on high—somewhere in the distance
There’s a voice that calls—remember who you are
If you lose yourself—your courage soon will follow
So be strong tonight—remember who you are
(Gavin Greenaway and Trevor Horn, Sound the Bugle)

You are going to need your whole heart in all its glory for this Story you’ve fallen into. You’ll need every ounce of courage and faith and love you can muster. So, who did God mean when he meant you? We at least know this: we know that we are not what we were meant to be. Most of us spend our energy trying to hide that fact, through all the veils we put on and the false selves we create. Our first parents thought they could hide behind fig leaves and in the bushes, and we do the same—only with more sophistication. Far better to spend our energy trying to recover the image of God and unveil it for his glory. One means that will help us is any story that helps us see with the eyes of the heart. Which brings us back to myth. Poet David Whyte says, “Myths reveal to us what we are capable of.” Clyde Kilby offers this image: “Myth is a lane down which we walk in order to repossess our soul.” Wow! Wouldn’t you love to repossess your soul? To live with an unmasked, unveiled glory that reflects the glory of the Lord? That’s worth fighting for.

The Bible is filled with characters—I don’t mean people playing parts; I mean the word your grandmother uses for your grandfather, who at the age of eighty-seven just got himself his fourth speeding ticket in a month. “He’s a real character.” Or as you say of those folks who wear hats or sing loud or walk to the beat of a drummer nobody else is hearing. Abraham is a character; so is his wife, Sarah. King David is a character. The disciples of Jesus are all characters. Take James and John, for instance, “the sons of Zebedee.” You might remember them as the ones who cornered Jesus to angle for the choice seats at his right and left hands in the kingdom. Or the time they wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy a village that wouldn’t offer Jesus a place for the night. Their buddies call them idiots; Jesus calls them the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17). He sees who they really are. It’s their mythic name, their true identity. They look like fishermen out of work; they are actually the Sons of Thunder.

There are stories that you’ve loved; there are characters that you’ve resonated with down deep inside, maybe even dreamed that you could be. Do you know why? Deep is calling unto deep. They spoke to you—they speak even now—because they contain some hint or glimpse into your true self. My friend Bethann paused, then said, “Really? Could it really be that there is a hidden greatness in me?” Myth is how we discover it. Rolland Hein explains, “Whether or not people are aware of the fact, they cannot live without myth, nor can they reach full stature as people without true myths.”

What Our Myths Reveal

Taped across the top of my computer, just above the screen on which I am now typing this sentence, I’ve pasted another: “Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus.” It’s Latin, for those of you, like me, who don’t know their Latin, a line from the movie Braveheart. Translated, it means “I never tell lies, but I am a savage.” And there’s a lot of story behind it. Personal myth. Like all stories, this one starts way back in my youth. As a young boy, I used to make up lies about myself because I didn’t think there was anything special or worthy about the real me. I told my friends I was part Indian, or a robber by night, or a motorcycle racer. I made up a glory because I was convinced I had none of my own.

Fast-forward to last summer when I led a group of friends into the Wimunche Wilderness on a backpacking expedition. We were on a sort of mission. Wild at Heart (a book I wrote about men recovering their masculine soul) had just come out that spring, and we were sort of living it out each day. In the morning, I’d suggest a question to wrestle with, pray about as we sweated our way through the wilderness. After dinner in the evening, we’d share our thoughts and stories around the campfire, and so we processed our lives against the book. Or vice versa. On the fourth day of the trip, as we broke camp in the woods near Twin Lakes, I suggested that the issue for the day was simply this: God, who am I? What do you think of me? What’s my real name?

This was The Question, the coveted question, the one we all wanted to ask on day one but knew it wouldn’t come until we’d wrestled with other business, like the father wound and the role of the Woman in our lives. We had to sort of earn the right to ask this question, and after what we’d been through the day before, it seemed we’d paid our dues. (We’d lost the trail and took a threemile detour through dense, leg-thrashing, face-lashing willows, which the elk seemed to have no trouble penetrating until I realized their legs are two feet longer than ours. We took the whole mess head-on for hours under the afternoon sun.)

Now, the day after, hoisting our packs, we headed out to cross a high pass and then down a long valley to another unknown camp. It started raining about ten minutes later, and the wind really whipped up as we climbed above the tree line. All was wetness and heather and rock and crag . . . and I was loving it. It reminded me of the Scottish Highlands in Braveheart; I felt I was hiking in a mythic reality. Then I remembered the day’s mission, and I began to ask God one of the most important questions any of us will ever ask: What do you think of me, God? Who am I to you? The guys were strung out over a mile or two along the trail by now, and I was alone and just reaching the pass.

You are my Wallace.

Something in my heart sank. Yes, sank. Good grief, John—look at you. You’re pathetic. You’re making up the voice of God. Filling in the blanks. Cooking up what you’d want him to say. Whether or not it was the voice of God, it took only about ten seconds to shut it down with a generous dose of heartache for wanting to hear something like this ever since I was young, and contempt for thinking I’d stepped in for God to pronounce the name, and self-reproach for not being willing to just hike awhile in silence and let God speak for himself. At about this point some of the guys caught up to me, and we stopped to snap a few photos at the pass. Then we headed down.

We reached camp with about an hour to spare before the dinner chores, so I took a walk by myself out into the meadow. No, that’s not exactly right. I left camp because I felt summoned. I knew God was waiting for me, there at the end of the day, just like a father or a friend, unwilling to let the matter slip away. As I began to tune in to my heart once more, I heard him ask me a question. (Just so you don’t think I’m schizophrenic, entertaining voices, let me remind you that the heart has become the new dwelling place of God, and it is in the heart that we hear his voice. I’ll say more on that in a minute.) God’s question to me felt unrelated to the event at the pass.

Tell me what you love.
Oh. Well . . . I loved the hike this morning. The wind and the rain and wildness of it all. The Highlands. [Did I just say Highlands?]
Go on.
Well, I love this sort of expedition too. I love leading a band of men.
Is there anything else? [Each question felt like it was taking me deeper into my own heart.]
I love fighting for people’s freedom.
There was a moment of silence.
Are you convinced?

God took me into the truth of the mythic name through the doorway of my own heart and my desires. I was trapped; there was no denying now that it was God who spoke that morning. I was forced to wrestle with the fact that what he spoke was true. Over the past year I have needed that mythic name and all the strength and courage it offers. The battle has been ugly, and there are many hearts to free. The Accuser laughs and mocks and throws everything he can: “You are making this up. You are a weak little man.” Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus. I never tell lies, but I am a savage.

Embracing the Glory

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us . . . And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela)

When I first read this quote, I thought, No, that’s not true. We don’t fear our glory. We fear we are not glorious at all. We fear that at bottom, we are going to be revealed as . . . disappointments. Mandela is just trying to make a nice speech, like a sermon, to buoy us up for a day or two. But as I thought about it more, I realized we do fear our glory. We fear even heading this direction because, for one thing, it seems prideful. Now pride is a bad thing, to be sure, but it’s not prideful to embrace the truth that you bear the image of God. Paul says it brings glory to God. We walk in humility because we know it is a glory bestowed. It reflects something of the Lord’s glory.

The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of our sin. We can work on our “issues.” But there is nothing to be “done” about our glory. It’s so naked. It’s just there—the truest us. It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his. For a woman to be truly feminine and beautiful is to invite suspicion, jealousy, misunderstanding. A friend confided in me, “When you walk into a room, every woman looks at you to see—are you prettier than they are? Are you a threat?”

And that is why living from your glory is the only loving thing to do. You cannot love another person from a false self. You cannot love another while you are still hiding. How can you help them to freedom while you remain captive? You cannot love another unless you offer her your heart. It takes courage to live from your heart. My friend Jenny said just the other day, “I desperately want to be who I am. I don’t want the glory that I marvel at in others anymore. I want to be that glory which God set in me.”

Finally, our deepest fear of all . . . we will need to live from it. To admit we do have a new heart and a glory from God, to begin to let it be unveiled and embrace it as true—that means the next thing God will do is ask us to live from it. Come out of the boat. Take the throne. Be what he meant us to be. And that feels risky . . . really risky. But it is also exciting. It is coming fully alive. My friend Morgan declared, “It’s a risk worth taking.”

But I can cry—
O Enemy, the maker hath not done;
One day thou shalt behold, and from the sight wilt run.
(George MacDonald)